For the longest time I could not keep straight Ann Sothern and Ann Sheridan. It wasn't until the Maisie series that I could finally tell who was who. Ann is very pretty and has a really nice smile. Ann often plays a wise-cracking blonde, but very seldom a dumb blonde.
I watched Blue Gardenia. Ann has a supporting role. She played the roommate and co-worker of Anne Baxter. Ms. Baxter reads a letter from her boyfriend, who is in Korea, that he is in love with another woman on her birthday. She decides to go out with Raymond Burr when he calls looking for Ms. Sothern. They have dinner and many drinks at the club Blue Gardenia. Nat King Cole sings the title song at the club. Ms. Baxter gets very drunk and the couple go to his apartment. Raymond makes a pass at Ms. Baxter, she grabs a poker at hits him. She then passes out. A while later she wakes up, still drunk and leaves the apartment. The next day it is reported that Raymond was killed. Ms. Baxter does not remember what happened. She has brief flashbacks, but doesn't remember the exact details. Richard Conte (the best leading actor of the 50's) plays a journalist investigating the story. Through the paper he reaches out to the Blue Gardenia killer with a promise to help. When Richard and Ms. Baxter meet Richard does not realize that she is the killer he is looking for. The police follow Richard around and arrest her, she feels betrayed. Richard is going onto the next assignment when he realizes the record playing when the body was found was not the same record that Ms. Baxter said was playing. The police go to the record store to investigate and the clerk attempted suicide. I don't want to give away too much. Ann Sothern plays a wise woman, the best friend to help, lean on and figures out what is going on before Anne Baxter admits it to her.
In Brother Orchid Ann plays the fiancee of gang leader Edward G. Robinson. Robinson is tired of the racket and decides to leave the gang. He goes to Europe where he looses his fortune and returns to the states 5 years later. When he comes back he tries to take up where he left off with the gang, but Humphrey Bogart has taken over and the boys are loyal to him. He goes to visit Ann and she has gone up in the world. She has purchased a nightclub with the help of a cowboy, played by Ralph Bellamy, more interested in cows that Ann. She tries to get Bogart and Robinson back together. Bogart and his gang take Robinson out to the country and shoot him. He is injured and ends up at a Franciscan order. During his recovery he decides to hide out at the order and works in the garden. He takes the moniker of Brother Orchid. Ann's character may appear as a dumb gold digging blonde, but she plays it very smart.
The first Maisie film I saw was Swing Shift Maisie about Maisie helping 2 lovers reunite during war time. She does her part for the war effort by working at an airplane plant. As she walks down the assembly line the men whistle at her and she smiles. Times certainly have changed. It was a month or so after that, that I realized that there was a movie series. A year after that I found out there was a radio series. All are worth checking out. The radio series is one of the few that I have heard that did not have a live audience. The Maisie basic story is Ann as a showgirl trying to get her break and make it big. Unfortunately that break never comes, but she has some interesting jobs along the way. A girl in the knife throwing act and dog act. Often times she has to leave her employment because the man in the act gets fresh. In all the films she has a very interesting wardrobe. If it not the same hat in every film it a similar one each time.
In Maisie Gets Her Man, the man is Red Skelton. One of the men who makes a pass at Maisie is Leo Gorcey. I have not seen him in anything other than a Bowery Boys film. Maisie looses her job and goes to an agent to get work. While she is waiting Red comes in as a bandit with a gun. When he shoots, a flag comes down stating his name and profession. He is very loud and fast talking and spends most of the film as such.
It is also D.W. Griffith's birthday.
No comments:
Post a Comment